THIS RIGHT HERE.
This is the BEST part of stepping into a healthier lifestyle.
Seeing my son get excited about coming to the gym with me to get active and have fun doing things besides sitting on the couch watching TV. This makes my heart SING. When I decided I needed to lose weight and get my health in gear, a big motivator for that was my family. My son was getting older and was losing interest in playing on the playground but he was more into video games and watching TV. My fiancé has always been a workaholic so eating junk during the workweek had always been a necessary evil. And my mom is getting older and already suffered from diabetes so her health needed to become a priority for all of us. With all of those factors, I knew things needed to change for all of us.
Changing our diet and becoming more active was the first step. So, fast forward 6 months, we decided it was time to up the ante and look into gyms. I was thrilled how easy going our local YMCA is when it comes to options for the entire family. Not only do they have all of the classes I was interested in taking (like Barre, Yoga, and Zumba) and the machines I needed, but they had several AOA or active older adult classes for my mom, and they're cool with older children using the machines. This was great for K because he really enjoys working out with us. There have been a few times where he likes to go to the children's area, but for the most part he wants to come a long with us, and I couldn't be happier!!
Now, K has never been a very athletic kid, so we really had to get him used to being at the gym for 45 minutes or so. I mean, at 9 years old his attention span wasn't like that of one of those gym junkies lol. So of course we had to make it fun and let him use the machines he was good at and were safe for his age and height. He also loved creating his own music playlists before heading to the gym, and being responsible for getting our after gym snacks ready.
So, if you have little ones I really hope to encourage you to bring them along in your journey. Don't feel held back because you don't have a sitter, but find activities to get them excited about being active. The gym works for my family, but I know quite a few people who prefer outdoor activities like the park or organized sports. So find what works best for you and rock it!
